


Murder

by thMaddHatter



Series: Teen Wolf Things I'll Never Write [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Animal Attacks, Butterflies, Cows, Creepy stuff, Crows, Dark Magic, Gen, Just a snippet, Magic, Power Outages, The Nemeton - Freeform, Weird Shit, aka nobody knows what the fuck is going on, beacon hills is fucking weird, but i'm not gonna write it, crop circles, maybe I'll talk about it in the comments if anyone is bothered to ask, random scene, rising water levels, this was a good story, unfinished work, weird stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 00:33:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2088951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thMaddHatter/pseuds/thMaddHatter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weird things have been happening all over Beacon Hills lately.</p>
<p>Just a random scene from a story I'll never write. I just liked this scene so much that I couldn't leave it alone without any attention. So here it is. Enjoy.</p>
<p>If anyone has any questions, I'll be happy to answer them, but I'm still not writing it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Murder

Stiles thundered down the stairs, late for school already when he heard the front door slam shut. Jumping down the last step he grinned at his Dad shuffling inside and throwing a stack of papers and his keys on the little table by the door. “What’s up Daddio?” He hoped if he played it off his Dad wouldn’t realize how late he was. Judging by the glare Stiles was receiving, his Dad had definitely noticed. He opened his mouth to come up with some excuse that wasn’t really necessary since they both knew he had just slept in, but his Dad cut him off first.

"Be careful when you go outside. There’s like seven crows on the roof of your jeep." Stiles snapped his jaw shut. That was not what he was expecting to hear.

"Uh… what?"

The Sheriff yawned and stretched, popping a few joints in his shoulders. “There’s a bunch of crow’s on the jeep,” he repeated. “So watch out. You can’t be mean to them or they’ll be mean back. And they’ll remember you pretty much forever.” Stiles frowned a little as he was hit with a sudden image of himself as an old man swatting away a group of silver crows squawking at him and pecking at his balding, liver spotted head.

"Will do Pops." Stiles nodded at his Dad. He headed toward the door, under the impression that he’d made it out scott free until something dawned on him. He spun around slowly, narrowing his eyes at his Dad. "Um… You were just outside?"

John, who’d been walking toward the kitchen and probably his whiskey, turned jiltedly. “Yeah,” he nodded. “That would be where the jeep is.”

Stiles bit back the curt response bubbling up on his tongue so he could get to the point he was trying to make. “So that means you just got home now? Like right now?” The Sheriff heaved a deep and dramatic sigh in the place of a response before turning back to the kitchen and pulling open the fridge.

"Dad!" Stiles was not letting him off that easy. He slipped right into protective son mode and he wasn’t getting out of it now. "Your shift was supposed to end like 6 hours ago!"

"I know," the sheriff came out of the fridge with a handful of chocolate covered doughnut holes. "But crime doesn’t stop because the sheriff is off duty." Stiles walked over to him and took the doughnut holes out of his hands, replacing them with green grapes. John was so used to such behavior that he didn’t even fight it anymore. He just started eating the grapes without missing a beat.

"Yeah, but that means you’ve been up all night and your next shift starts in just a few more hours."

"So you should probably just let me keep pretending I’m eating doughnuts and then go to bed."

"You can’t push it back, or something? You’ll work yourself to death like this!" The Sheriff walked past his son, ignoring him as he took his not doughnuts up the stairs. "To death Dad! And not a glorious death, like dying in a blaze of gunfire. Although you should probably avoid that. Not even a dignified death either, like being crushed in a burning building while saving a group of puppies. But you should probably avoid burning buildings as well… And puppies for that matter." Stiles shook his head, feeling himself getting sidetracked. "No, it would be a lonely, quiet but grisly death. You’d be all old looking and shrivelly and gross-"

"Hey, aren’t you late for school?" Stiles blanched as his Dad glared at him from the top of the staircase.

"Uh… Well I… Yo- Go to bed!" Stiles did an about face and booked it out of the doorway before his Dad could argue. He turned around quickly, fiddling with his keys as he went to lock the deadbolt.

When the lock slid into place, he switched the keys around so he could easily unlock the jeep. He could hear his Dad mulling about in his room from the open window near the porch and he looked up at it briefly to shoot a goodnight at his Dad before finally leaving for school.

He turned around to follow the path to the driveway. Before he had even taken a full step, he froze in place, paralyzed by what was looking at him. “DAAAAAAD!” he asked, unable to keep the panic out of his voice. “DAD!”

"Oh my god, Stiles!" The sheriff’s voice travelled out of the window accented with just the tracest bits of rage. "I just got into my bed! What could you possi-"

"LOOK OUT YOUR WINDOW!" Stiles took a few cautious steps forward. "I thought you said there was a few crows…" Stiles let his muttered sentence trail off. Partly because he knew he’d gotten too used to speaking to werewolves and halfway through it he realized his Dad wouldn’t be able to hear him, but it was mostly because the oddity in front of him was literally taking his breath away.

"Holy…" Stiles heard his Dad swearing before he rushed away from the window, back down the stairs and outside. He flung the door open and stood next to his son, staring wide eyed at what had to have been no less than 2000 crows sitting on every occupiable space on the street.

Sidewalks, rooftops, cars, lawns. Every surface was covered by crows. The only places that didn’t have crows in them were the trees.

Stiles walked a little further down the walkway to get a better look, taking special care not to kick any of the birds. “I don’t understand.” He couldn’t wrap his head around this. There was just too many weird things going on around town lately. “First the thing with the cows, then butterflies, now this? The animals around here are going nuts.”

"No, no," the sheriff interjected, jumping a little as a few crows near him began ruffling they’re feathers. "It’s not just the animals. The power going haywire, the garden crop circles, upturned cows, the lake rising thirteen inches for no reason, now this. There’s something else going on here."

"Wait, you think they’re all connected?" Stiles paused from trying to nudge a crow with the toe of his shoe to make room for his foot as he considered the thought.

"Don’t you?" John began weaving through the birds, heading closer to his son.

"I admit I might have thought about it," Stiles answered a bit too calmly as he noticed another flock of crows flying their direction and preparing to land. No. Not a flock. A murder. "It just all seems so random. What the heck could it mean? I mean I don’t see any kind of pattern, do you?"

The Sheriff shook his head as he finally managed to reach his son. “But crows, aren’t they like the harbingers of death or something? Is somebody dying? Has Lydia been feeling weird or anything lately?”

"Not that I know of." Stiles reached down to check his phone for any missed calls or messages since he woke up that morning, but there weren’t any. He shook his head and gently waved his phone in his hand in confirmation.

None of this was making any sense. Much like the lake rising and the crop circles in people’s yards, there was no way they could reasonably explain this. The explanations for the other things were reaching as well. It wasn’t going to take long before the town realized that “mischievous teenagers” and “animal attacks” were simply code for “weird shit is happening and we don’t know what the fuck is going on.”

Getting an idea, John reached up and took the phone from his son’s hand, much to Stiles’ indignation. He took it and headed back to the doorstep, turning it to camera mode. He began making a video, capturing all the birds on the yard and street with the neighbors’ roofs in the background. Even the 30 or so Stiles had noticed earlier that were hovering in the sky as they tried to find spots to cram themselves into.

"Where do you think they all came from?" The Sheriff asked after watching most of the ones still flying rudely knock other birds out of the way to make a place to land.

Stiles raised both his arms up in an exaggerated shrug, but as soon as he did, he began immediately regretting his life choices. Seeing new perching space, the last few crows circling overhead all shot down to take up the space on Stiles’ extended arms. He screamed in a definitely not at all girly way and tried to fling them off of him, but froze as his father’s words cut through the air.

"DON’T MOVE!" He shouted, voice as firm as if he had been apprehending a criminal. "Stay completely still! There’s so many of them right now that if you piss them off it’ll only take seconds to kill you!" These were not comforting words for the boy who’s specialty in life was pissing things off. Stiles puffed his cheeks out and stifled a whimper as he tried to force himself still. It was mostly working until the final 2 crows both landed on his head at the same time.

He outright screamed and flailed his arms until his dad hissed at him to be still again. Fortunately he had only mildly disturbed the birds that were digging their claws through the fabric of his hoodie. He silently applauded himself for his tendency to forgo a coat in the favor of wearing 3 or more hoodies over a layered shirt combination to keep him warm in the winter. He thought they were doing a better job at keeping claws out of his skin than a single coat would have.

He trembled out a whine as the birds on his head fought each other over the dominant spot on his crown. Eventually they stopped, both settling half off his head and with a claw or 2 digging into each ear for added purchase. He’d never thought himself to be afraid of crows. Not even after the incident earlier in the year when a murder came crashing through the windows of Jennifer Blake’s classroom. But in this moment all he could do was close his eyes, hold his breath, pretend his arms weren’t getting tired, and pray to whatever god that might be listening that none of these birds needed to poop.

"Stiles…" the Sheriff asked with a strange edge to his voice. "Son… what are they looking at?" Stiles let out his breath slowly and peeked his eyes open, letting his arms droop a bit. He noticed it didn’t bother the birds, so he did it a little more before looking to see what his Dad was talking about.

He looked at all the birds around him, even managing to turn his head a bit to look up and down the street. Sure enough, every single bird in the vicinity, 2000+ crows, were standing stock still, facing east and staring up at something in the sky. It was the creepiest thing Stiles had ever seen in his life.

Creepier still, Stiles followed their gaze and saw nothing. Absolutely nothing. Whatever they were looking at, they were the only ones who could see it.

It wasn’t until all the crows started cawing and shrieking at once that Stiles had even realized they’d been eerily silent the entire time they’d been there. The sudden onslaught of sound was so loud and so surprising that Stiles forgot completely about the crows on him and he screamed again (definitely not even girlier than the last time thank you very much) and ducked, flinging his arms over his head.

Just as suddenly as the screeching, all 2000+ birds lifted into the air and took off into the sky in the direction they’d all been staring. For a full 90 seconds the only sound that could be heard around the whole block was the cawing of crows and the flapping of wings.

By the time the crows were nothing more than a giant black smudge on the skyline and a ringing in Stiles’ and the Sheriff’s ears, the other neighbors had become brave enough to venture outside and assess the damage. Thankfully it appeared that they hadn’t pooped on anything worth complaining over. However there was a thin layer of black feathers dusting the entire street. Stiles himself was covered in them, but he shook them off easily. With the exception of one particular feather that was stuck to his nose.

He swatted at it frantically, only managing to make it slide down to his mouth where he tried but failed to spit it out. He finally got it off when he brushed it off his chin and flung it onto the grass. (Or so he thought until later that day when Malia suddenly appeared behind him-making him jump so hard he slammed himself into his locker-and she pulled it off his shoulder and handed it to him.)

The sheriff headed over to Stiles, giving him a quick once over to make sure he was okay. Seeing that he was all fine, he clapped a hand on his son’s shoulder. “We need to figure this out.” Stiles nodded at his Dad, nerves still wrought and trembling a little under the touch. “Go to school and ask your friends. See if they’ve heard anything. I’ll call Argent and Deaton to see if they at least have any idea where to start looking for answers.”

Stiles could see the deep bags under his Dad’s eyes and the stress of an all nighter weighing on his face. “No,” he disagreed, protective son mode snapping back on. “I’ll ask at school. I’ve got their numbers, I’ll text them during passing period. You go get some sleep. And if you accidentally sleep in and turn off your phone so one of your deputies has to take over the first few hours of your shift, I’m sure no one will judge you.” John threw his son a look. “Okay, _I_ won’t judge you, and that’s what matters.”

John nodded obediently and gave his son a quick hug before heading back to the door, glancing up at the skies warily before going inside. After watching his Dad leave, Stiles hesitated for a moment, taking a second to release the nervous sigh that had been resting on his diaphragm since the crows left. At last he got into the jeep, dusting feathers off the hood as he crossed in front of it.


End file.
